The Dodo Blog

TOSSING/THROWING/TUMBLING

Welcome to the last part of this series on how to apply pressure in wet felting.

This is another one of my favorite methods for fulling. Since I love working with my hands, and prefer avoiding tools, I use the TOSSING/THROWING technique in nuno felting, as well as when I’m making pieces without fabric, but where the wool has been laid very thinly (cobweb felt). This is only done in the last stages of fulling, after I’ve secured the fibers in place through rolling a bit, of course.

This technique doesn’t full the felt as evenly as rolling, but I like it because it causes a quick shrinkage, and gives the felt surface a more textured and wavy look.

I would recommend this method for small or thin pieces. I’ve used this method for all the items below.

Before you do the throwing, make sure you have enough water and soap in your piece, but it shouldn’t be soaked. Start gently, and throw harder as you progress. Do it in the sink or...

RUBBING/MASSAGING/KNEADING

1. WITH YOUR HANDS

This is probably the most intuitive method because all you need for it are your bare hands.

It’s definitely the one to use after you’ve laid the wool, and applied water and soap. You start by pressing the wool layers to get the air out of the fibers, and then you rub and massage gently, to get the fibers to migrate and slowly connect to each other.

It’s generally a good idea not to work directly on the wool in this phase, to avoid the fibers from moving. Instead, you should lay a piece of tulle, net or a plastic on the wool, to keep the fibers in place.

Image from “Filzen – Alte Tradition, modernes Handwerk”, Gunilla Paetau Sjöberg

If you’re working on a small piece it probably doesn’t make much sense to use the rolling method, so you might do the entire piece using only your hands. In this case, just rubbing and massaging might still take too long, so a great alternative is to knead...

In some of my latest blog posts, I’ve been talking about the factors we have to take into account in wet felting. We’ve already seen that:

• the WOOL choice is definitely where everything starts,
• SOAP has a fundamental function in the process,
• and the combination of WATER and TEMPERATURE is extremely important.

So, you could say that PRESSURE is the fifth element in wet felting, because nothing happens without mechanical action. This means you’ll have to either sweat, or use some kind of tool or machine to add AGITATION to the felting to complete the process.

Image from www.nzmerino.co.nz

Wool fibers felt due to the microscopic scales they have on the surface. During the felting process, they open up and connect to each other, creating the fabric.

And the purpose of agitation is exactly to interlock the fibers to create a compacter, thicker material. Pressure forces the air out of the fibers, so that they can come in contact with one another. At the beginning, it...

WATER is another element of the wet felting equation. As you know, water has to be added to the wool (whether in a soap/water solution or by applying it directly to the piece you want to felt).

The question is should you work with HOT or with COLD water?

I learnt to felt with hot water and I was astounded when I discovered that cold water also works. And it works because the essential thing is to create a situation of pH change in the wool, along with other conditions for the opening of the fibers. All of this happens with cold water too.

But, if you’re washing a 100% wool sweater, you know you should do it with cold rather than with hot water. And why? Well, because a higher temperature speeds up the felting process.

If you’re thinking “so why should I care?”, let me give you a practical example.

Have you ever tried nuno felting a piece with hot water, only to discover that your wool didn’t attach to the silk? This might happen for different reasons,...

Today I’m going back to basics and I’m talking about SOAP.

As you know, there’s a lot of information around the right one for felting. In fact, different felters have different preferences. But the truth is, from olive oil soap, to dishwashing liquid, or hand soap, all of them produce felt.

If you don’t mind, I’ll be geeky for a while. It might sound strange to you, but I actually find this interesting ?

Now, if you read anything about felting in Mongolia, you’ll see they traditionally used animal urine to felt. The reason is that changing the pH of the wool causes the scales of the fibers to open. Apparently, if your felting solution is pH4 or below and pH8 or above, the felting is faster. But I don’t want to go much deeper into this. The point I’m trying to make is kinda “All roads lead to Rome”. Generally speaking, as long as you change your wool’s pH enough, it’ll produce felt.

Of course, instead of animal...